The Green Beast of Konoha
by Shark8
Summary: Ryoga tells the story of one Rock Lee to pass the time as he wanders through a forrest. Eventual Rock LeeSakura
1. A Ninja Outcast

The Green Beast of Konoha

Disclaimer: Characters are the property of their creators and properly licensed authorities. That said, Fanfiction falls under the fair-use law.

* * *

"Damn it Ranma!" I growled under my breath. This was going to be our last duel, the one that decisively showed how I, Ryoga Hibiki, am the superior martial artist because of my hard work… if only I could _find_ Ranma Saotome to fight him.

I just can't seem to get oriented correctly, always rushing down streets to my destination only to find that where I'm headed is not my destination, like the world is shifting beneath my very feet. I swear I've passed that building three times today and that statue over there, it shouldn't be in this town. If only I could find my way to Furinkan High I could have one of the students guide me to the Dojo where Ranma lives…

"That leech, still freeloading off the Tendo family, I'll bet!" I growl to myself as I pour my anger into my running, promptly crashing into a wide tree. In hindsight, running like that was not the wisest move to make, and somewhere I'd left the city and was now in a dense forest.

It looks like I'm well and truly lost now. _Sigh_. I was hoping to at least get to Tokyo today. It's rather odd how my luck's never changed, despite how I try to change it or how much I train myself these things are always happening to me. It's strikingly similar to what's happened to me earlier and probably will happen yet again, but it can't be as bad as _that_ time… No, not today, not yesterday either… it was a lifetime ago. Now, since it looks like we're going to be here a while, let me tell you a story.

'What's it about?' you ask. Well, it's about a loser that worked very hard, so hard that he went from being a loser to being a great success…

**_Chapter One_ – A Ninja Outcast**

He was pitiful, really. Not because he was average, but because he was below average, despite how he trained. Below average in almost everything: speed, dexterity, coordination, grades. There was always an air of something near depression or self-defeat, even though he struggled against it with all his might. It didn't help that even though he tried his best to be friendly he found himself all alone… true, it was partly because he was an orphan, adopted into the ninja clan by a respected veteran who had been permanently injured in defending the village.

His name was Rock Lee. Adopted son of Eimon Lee the fisherman, formerly the Red Star of Konoha, a distinguished Jonin renowned for his battle prowess, character, and proponent of the underdog. _That_ was probably the reason he hadn't been kicked out of the ninja school by now. He could just see his adopted father arguing his case to his teachers as he leaned on his cane.

That was depressing, the thought that he was only in school because Eimon was "batting for him". He wanted to become a great ninja, like Eimon, but he wanted to do it on his own… to prove that he could do it. To prove that he wasn't worthless, to vindicate all the effort that Eimon had put forth on his behalf.

That was when Lee ran into the student in front of him, a big burly guy that resembled Bigfoot. He couldn't have been more than eleven, and yet he was already shaving a thin beard and moustache, and his arms were covered in hair almost as thick as Lee's eyebrows.

"Hey, punk!" The other student said, shoving Lee to the ground, "You should watch where you're going. You piece of trash…" he finished with a snort and kicked Lee in the side before turning and marching off.

"Mmmm-ARRRGH!" Lee screamed, slamming his fist into the ground. His eyes flew wide open as he realized something… hitting the well-packed earth of the schoolyard like that hurt. After a few minutes of concentrating on the pain while jumping up and down while cradling the injured hand the physical pain began to subside, only to be replaced by an inarticulate hole of sadness in his gut.

Good thing this period, formal PE, was the last class of the day. It was just ending, which lifted his spirits a little as he walked home, though his spirits fell as he moved closer and closer to his destination, by the time he opened the front door he was choking back tears. He just wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out. He wanted to roll into a ball and shut out the rest of the world… he wanted, he thought a moment, _respect_.

Lee closed his eyes and sighed, he didn't deserve it though and that was what grated. He really was as bad as his classmates thought he was, worse even, as he had yet to show even the faintest hint of the new techniques that they had just been taught. Ninjitsu: the ninja art of _transformation_ and the ninja art of '_cloning_' or producing another image of oneself to distract opponents.

Why couldn't he get it? They had been covered in class every day for the last two weeks, already about a third had gotten passable results, and another fourth was on the verge of getting it. Emptying his mind of all else, Rock Lee contemplated the techniques as he carried out his chores, getting water for the meal, picking some of the vegetables from Eimon's garden, and washing them. It was Thursday and Eimon would be making his fish stew tonight, it was always good but not nearly as good as the old man's curry.

"Rock?" Someone said, waking him from his near-trance.

Rock Lee snapped his head up to see who was calling his name. It was Eimon, his adopted father, and they were both sitting at the table, ready to eat. The sun was going down and starting to cast twilight's shadows around the scenery. Just how long had he been thinking about those ninja arts?

"Well, aren't you going to say 'thank-you for the food'?" Eimon asked, pointing his chopsticks at the boy.

Rock looked sheepish for a moment as he said his thanks and proceeded to pick up his chopsticks with a wince. His hand hurt, _really_ hurt, though oddly it was only in his middle finger it shot through his whole hand. Eimon caught the look immediately and asked what was wrong.

"Nothing." Rock Lee replied, stalling for time as he racked his brain wondering how he could have hurt his hand. 'Oh, I see.' he thought to himself when he realized that he'd likely gained the injury when he'd punched the ground.

"Let me see your hand." Eimon said, beckoning Rock over.

"It is nothing." Rock said, lying. It would be too embarrassing to have to admit to Eimon that he'd done this to himself.

"I said to let me see it." Eimon said in a low tone of voice that carried command and left no room for argument.

Reluctantly, Rock let him see the hand, and after an short and painful inspection Eimon declared that his middle finger was broken, confirming Rock's own suspicions. Rock hoped that Eimon wouldn't ask _how_ it had happened and, despite the pain, was relived when the only thing he did was set the finger and splint it telling him to be more careful.

– – – – – – – –

The next day Rock woke early and did his morning chores before breakfast, and after the largish meal he and Eimon left the house for school and work, respectively.

School was completely uneventful until the PE period again. Rock not being able to perform any of the Ninjitsu while even more of his peers caught on to it and that's what made it so uneventful. He was occupied trying to do the art of _transformation_ instead of watching where he was going, which was the reason he'd run into him again.

The bigger, yeti-like student glowered at Rock Lee. "I thought I warned you about that." he said maliciously as he pushed Lee down, "I guess I'll have to teach you a lesson."

Rock almost sensed it when the other's gaze locked onto his splinted finger, and pain shot up through his arm as Yeti-boy stomped on the finger and ground into it, twisting his heel for maximum effectiveness. A vicious smile appeared on his face when Rock Lee screamed.

It was therefore a complete surprise when Rock Lee pulled his hand out from under the boy and fell into a defensive posture, placing his right hand behind his back to keep it out of reach on the Yeti standing in front of him. Anger lit his eyes as he growled.

"You. Are. Going. To. Pay. For. _That_." Lee said, blocking a strike from the Yeti with only his left hand on every word, it was almost as if he could see the strikes coming, on the last word he lunged into the opening heat his block had created and snapped a quick, yet powerful, punch into the side of his neck.

It wasn't over as the Yeti recoiled from the hit, Rock followed up with a kick to the side, and practically danced as he followed up on the Yeti's retreating posture. He was saying something, Rock was sure, he could see his lips moving, but he couldn't hear anything over the blood rushing in his ears. The world seemed to blur red and then suddenly it snapped back to normal. It was shocking, it seemed like only a second, but Lee could distinctly remember beating the Yeti for what must have been close to three minutes… and now a teacher was stepping through the crowd of young ninja-trainees that had gathered around the fight.

"What's going on here!" He demanded, then he caught sight of the badly beaten Yeti-boy sprawled out, unconscious, and severely beaten. He grabbed Rock's shirt and forced him to look directly at him, "What did you do?"

Before Rock could answer three more of the teachers appeared, one scooped up the prone form of Rock's opponent while the other two barraged him with questions along with the first one. Rock couldn't answer any of them, looking back and forth at them as they bombarded him with their questions.

It all seemed to stop suddenly when Rock Lee found himself sitting in the headmaster's office waiting for his father to come. All he could think was how bad his punishments were going to be. After Eimon arrived and the headmaster told the two what was going to happen with Rock, he sent Rock out so that they could talk alone.

Four months expulsion. That was what echoed through Rock's mind as he waited for Eimon. Four months… Rock knew he could forget everything about ninjitsu, in that amount of time everyone who was in his class would practically be masters of _transformation_ and _cloning_. He would never be able to graduate and become a ninja now, what a disappointment he must be… and so he continued to berate himself until finally the doors opened and Eimon stepped out.

Rock looked expectantly at Eimon, but the older man just signaled with his cane: _walk with me_. The two continued in silence as they made their way to Eimon's house. Rock dreaded every step, expecting the old man to burst out yelling at him with every step. What happened was far, far worse than he expected. Far worse than any amount of chores or other disciplines that Eimon could have laid on him.

The old man simply kept his face forward and said quietly and calmly, "I'm disappointed in you, Rock; you should never use your strength for revenge."

* * *

Author's Notes: Well, here it is, the story of Rock Lee as told by Ryoga Hibiki (from Ranma ½). It's odd, I know, but I thought it would be kind of fun, and since I popped out near 2k words in one night I think it was! Anyway, let me know what you think. 


	2. Mountain Journeying

You know, I sure could have learned that lesson on revenge and strength sooner. I've always blamed Ranma for my life being so screwed up and wanted to get revenge on him for the longest time. I've learned, from this story I'm telling you, that isn't right.

What? You think that I still want to fight Ranma for revenge? No, I don't. I want to beat him fair-and-square, to prove that I have increased my skills and justify sll the work I've put both into martial arts and into changing myself. See, Ranma's been a challenging opponent since ever I met him, and he usually does beat me… though, to be sure, I _have_ gotten in my share of victories. It just seems to me that he's always pulling some other trick out of his ass. Hah, much like a certain genin in the story, though Rock Lee still won't meet _him_ for a while.

Let's see where was I? Oh, yes. Rock Lee had just been expelled from school after beating a classmate senseless…

**Chapter 2 – _Mountain Journeying_**

"Come on, get up! It's past time!" Eimon said, almost bellowing. He was entirely too cheerful for the hour, three thirty in the morning.

"Passed dime for what?" Rock groggily replied, vainly trying to squeeze his eyes shut against the bright lantern..

"Getting packed!" Eimon responded, nudging Rock with his cane, "Come on! We have to get packed."

"What?" Rock questioned as he opened one eye to peek at his adopted father to try to make sense out of this all… he hoped this was all just one of those realistic dreams. It was much too early for any sane person to be up, only vampires and zombies should be up at this hour…

Both Rock's eyes snapped open as he ran his tongue over his teeth, particularly feeling his canine teeth. He would never admit it, but _vampires_… vampires scared the shit out of him. He'd had several dreams where he would look in a pool of water or a mirror and see his teeth as fangs, ready to suck some poor soul's blood. That vampires weren't supposed to have a reflection didn't matter, it was a dream, and therefore outside of the things you would normally expect. Rock sighed in relief when his probes revealed nothing of the sort. He wasn't a vampire.

And now that his fears were alleviated, he found himself packing an oversized backpack full of supplies for Eimon and himself. Eimon had explained that they were going to the mountains for a few months, 'for training' he said, not bothering to elaborate.

When he finally finished with the packing it was starting to get light, the pre-dawn harbinger of sunrise that those of us who are early risers will often see.

"Good, we'll depart now." Eimon nodded and pulled his own pack up on his shoulder, a smallish travel-bag that held mostly scrolls and books.

And so the two set off on a training trip, much like I'm wont to do, though it is admittedly not by my own choice all the time. The main reason that I'm relating the training is not just the physical rigamarole that he went through, but the wisdom that Eimon shared with him, the two are rasher inseparable, see? Why, to illustrate, I remember this one time when… wait. Let's not get sidetracked. Um… the beginning of their journey. Ah!

Well, the journey up to the mountains was uneventful, if somewhat difficult for Rock Lee because he wasn't used to the sheer weight of the pack, and by the time that they actually arrived is legs were as sore as he could ever remember.

He never got the chance to relax though, as Eimon promptly launched into his training-instructor mode. The first thing he did was instruct Rock on how to do deep-knee bends… while holding two nearly empty buckets of water. On the bend his arms were to swing out, and likewise were to swing back when he rose.

"Okay, start.." Eimon said, counting off a rather slow cadence. "Down!" Pause. "Up!" Pause. "Down" Pause. "Up!"

After a while the cadence stopped and Rock stopped to look around and see what was going on… only to hear Eimon yell across some distance, "I didn't say to rest; continue!"

Rock did so but oriented himself to see Eiomon before he did. He watched the old man as he continued the exercises. What was he doing?

Some indeterminate time later, it felt like hours but could have been minutes, the training really screwing with his sense of time, he found out what Eimon was doing. Gathering wood, oddly enough, not for fire but whittling instead. The old ninja pulled a kunai out of somewhere and began working the wood, calling out a steady cadence.

"Up and stop!" Eimon said, glancing up at Rock for what seemed to be the first time since beginning his whittling, though in truth he'd been keeping a constant eye on the boy.

Rock Lee nearly collapsed in relief, his legs were screaming out at him as were his shoulders, instead he rubbed them trying to soothe the tired muscles.

"This is your first lesson." Eimon broke in, "Growth is most often painful; what is worth doing is never easy, least it would not be worth doing."

"I-I understand." Rock replied.

"I understand, _sensei_." Eimon said, whipping his cane out and giving two raps, one on either shoulder, that were hard enough only to aggravate the labored muscles. "When we are here training you must call me sensei. Here I am your teacher foremost and your father second… and you may understand the words, but you do not _understand_ the lesson."

Rock looked down and thought about that last bit. He thought he did understand, but Eimon had never lied to him before. Even if the old man was being harsher than Lee was used to, he doubted that Eimon was being deceitful now.

"I thought I did…" Lee said, not even raising his eyes when he spoke.

"Ah, and that is the second lesson that I was going to teach you… You are but a child, you do _not_ know everything, and you never will. Sometimes it is best to learn what you do not know, before thinking on what you do know."

'Learning what you do _not_ know?' Lee thought to himself, but said out loud, "That sounds ridiculous… how can someone know the absence of something?"

Eimon pointed to a clearing that had quite a few stumps in it with a house made of logs near the center and asked, "What do you see?"

"I see a log cabin." Rock replied.

There was a moment of silence. "And?" Eimon prompted, "Anything else?"

"No, nothing." Rock answered.

Eimon rapped him on the head with his cane, gently though. "See the stumps? They show what is missing."

"The trees!" Rock shouted as his eyes lit up. "It used to have trees."

Eimon smiled and nodded, pleased that he'd caught on so quickly. "What kind of trees were they? Where are they now?"

"I have no idea, they could have been anything." Lee shook his head. "And they could be anywhere, though I think they were used in the fire-pit over there."

"They certainly _could_ have been many types of tree, but there are some types of tree that they could not be… there are trees that will not grow here. I can tell you that they were probably the same kinds of trees that are at the edge of the clearing, and not because I cut them with my father. Ant the trees are not in the fire-pit, for the most part, they're in the cabin that was the only thing you saw a moment ago."

"Oh. I see…" Lee nodded, "You can take the things that you _do_ know to find out things you _do not_ know."

"That's it precisely." Eimon nodded. "Remember it well, you'll need it in battles, when you cannot know where your enemy is, or what he is going to do."

– – – – – – – –

The next day, Rock found himself on a wide tree-stump trying to dodge a small multitude of little logs, about the size as his two fists put together swinging from ropes overhead, while attempting to keep his balance.

He dodged out of the way of one and saw another swinging his way and preemptively moved to the other edge of the stump. He was surprised when Eimon threw his kunai into the log and altered it's course to collide with him and moved jerkily as he tried to decide wether he needed to move or not.

"_Do_ or _do not_; to the ninja to hesitate is to die." Eimon stated in a loud, clear voice as Rock lost his balance and fell off the stump. "If you are in a concealed position and you begin to move, you must follow the movement through, otherwise you will not be concealed and your enemies will have the initiative."

– – – – – – – –

Several days later Lee found himself wielding a pair fo kunai on that log, blocking the small logs and sending them back on wild courses to swing back. He was finally getting the hang of it when Eimon threw a dirt clod into the mix that exploded on one of the logs throwing dirt into the air and Rock's eyes. Rock tried to keep his pattern but missed all of the logs as he winced from the pain. Needless to say they hit him.

"You must always be aware of your surroundings. It is from the unexpected that an enemy will try to trap you."

– – – – – – – –

There were many more things that Eimon taught him on the trip, and many more that he _tried_ to teach him as well. But when it was finally over and Rock put his large pack on to return to Konoha he mused to himself how much lighter it felt.

On the journey back to their village, Eimon related the tale of his role in the young ninja in the newly established Konoha village, how he'd personally met the First and Second Hokages and even had the Third as a student for a short time.

When they reached the gates to the village Rock noticed something that disturbed him. Eimon had been lagging somewhat behind and was wheezing a bit. When he asked his adopted father if something was wrong the other simply replied that it was "the ailments of an old man".

Rock Lee couldn't shake his troubled feeling about that response when he got home. He hopped that it was a product of his overactive imagination… to have Eimon die now… would be _awful_.

Fortunately, the morning brought relief. Everything was going back to normal, and he was going to school tomorrow. For the rest of the day, however he would be fishing with Eimon. Not the net-fishing that Eimon usually did, but pole fishing.

Rock had never really gone pole fishing before and Eimon gave him a quick crash-course in fishing. The old man said that all of the ideals behind being a ninja were contained in fishing, one just had to look for them.

"Fishing?" Rock Lee raised a bushy eyebrow quizzically.

The fisherman must quietly wait for the fish to bite, just as ninja was expected to on a mission. If a fisherman was to quick in trying to hook the fish, he would only startle it and the fish would get away… just like a ninja springing from his concealment prematurely would lose the upper hand; and if a fisherman were to wait too long, the fish would eat all his bait, leaving behind the hook, whereas a ninja waiting too long would miss opportunities, potentially single opportunities, to carry out his mission.

"But what about the psychological aspect of being a ninja? And what about Ninjutsu and Genjutsu?" Rock inquired about the two terms covering _Ninja Techniques_ (Ninjutsu) and _Illusion Techniques_ (Genjustu).

"It's no different. A pike in the water can be as crafty as any ninja on the land…" Eimon leaned close to Rock Lee and whispered, "and Ninjutsu and Genjutsu are not _really_ required to be a ninja."

"**What!**" Rock Lee exclaimed jumping up in surprise and almost overturning the small rowboat. Of course _Ninjutsu_ and _Genjutsu_ were required.

"I've seen you trying to practice them, Genjutsu and Ninjutsu, but you haven't got a lick of talent in either." Eimon said, totally seriously, not completely unaware that his words were hurting Rock Lee more than a simple punch to the gut would have... but it wasn't without hope either. "You do, however, shine in your martial arts, _Taijutsu_, is what you should concentrate on. You have a natural ability there that any of the students in the Academy would be hard pressed to match."

"But without Ninjutsu and Genjutsu…" Rock stubbornly insisted.

"Without them you can do just fine. And I'm not saying not to try to learn them, but look at your real strengths." Eimon interrupted, then added lightheartedly "Besides, you've scared all the fish away, so sit down and be quiet."

* * *

Author's Notes: Here's chapter two;less exciting in my mind than the first, but I hope some good character development.


End file.
